A higher minimum wage will lift families, boost state revenue for the state budget | Opinion

Posted Feb 09, 2019

Raising the wage to $15 would lift wages for 2.1 million Pennsylvania workers - or 37% of the state’s total workforce. The majority of workers in the state who would benefit are adults who are working full-time. On average, the workers that would benefit from a minimum wage increase account for nearly half of their family's income.

As lawmakers begin to debate Gov. Tom Wolf’s 2019-20 budget proposal, I would urge them to consider the headlines from some of our neighboring states regarding one of the governor’s top priorities – raising our state’s shameful $7.25 an hour minimum wage:

$15 minimum wage is now coming to New Jersey

Ohio minimum wage set to rise

New York State Minimum Wage Hike Takes Effect

In fact, every one of our surrounding states has a higher minimum wage – and by significant margins. At the start of this year, more than 5 million workers in 20 states and in 24 cities and counties around the nation saw an increase in their minimum wage. Pennsylvania’s wage has not been raised in more than a decade.

Raising the wage to $15 would lift wages for 2.1 million Pennsylvania workers - or 37% of the state’s total workforce. The majority of workers in the state who would benefit are adults who are working full time. On average, the workers that would benefit from a minimum wage increase account for nearly half of their family’s income.

Lawmakers also need to understand that raising the minimum wage would generate at least $140 million in new revenues and savings in the state’s Medicaid program that can be earmarked for important priorities, such as our public schools or crumbling infrastructure.

A higher minimum wage is a cornerstone of the CLEAR Coalition’s Blueprint for Growing Pennsylvania’s Economy, which includes proposals that, all together, would generate $3.5 billion in new revenues and savings through efficiencies.

The plan will help create higher wages, more jobs and revenue for investments in our public schools, in technical education and workforce development, and adequate funding for other core services and programs.

The Coalition also supports enacting a common sense and long overdue tax on the Marcellus shale drillers; closing corporate tax loopholes; and ending overpayments to charter and cyber charter schools among other proposals.

A fair shale tax of 2.4% would generate as much as $200 million in its first year; as much as $400 million in year two and $1.7 billion in new revenues over five years.

Incredibly, the GOP leaders in the state House oppose any shale tax, despite the fact that the bulk of this tax could be paid by out-of-state consumers because 80% of the natural gas produced in our state is purchased by residents of other states and internationally.

Pennsylvania remains the only natural gas producing state that does not impose a statewide excise tax on natural gas. It is time for drillers to pay their fair share.

Similarly, fixing our tax structure would generate more than $2 billion in new revenues and reverse a decades-long trend of providing tax breaks to corporations – at the expense of all taxpayers.

In 1972, 30% of state revenues were generated by corporate taxes. In the last fiscal year, corporate taxes accounted for 15% of total tax revenue. Now, income tax from Pennsylvania citizens fills that larger hole in state coffers.

All combined, these proposals would generate an estimated $3.5 billion in new revenue and savings and efficiencies in state government operations – and unlike many other revenue proposals, it does so without increasing the taxes or fees paid by the majority of Pennsylvania citizens.

We must continue making smart investments in essential services and programs that Pennsylvanians rely on – and the Commonwealth needs to enact real, sustainable revenues in order to do so.

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David Fillman is the Executive Director of AFSCME Council 13 and a co-founder of the CLEAR Coalition, which was founded in 2010 by seven of the state’s largest public employee unions representing approximately one million Pennsylvanians. For more information on the CLEAR Coalition, please visit

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